French Onion Soup

French onion soup and I go way back.  Back when TGI Friday’s waiters actually wore flair buttons and obnoxiously striped shirts; a young Beth Stewart had her first bowl of that onion-y delicacy. Brothy, sweet, cheesy glory was had that day.

While I love going off the cuff and creating my own version of the classics, this time I chose to go with a trusted source to guide me through French Onion Soup.  That source being Alton Brown of Food Network fame. He’s an easy choice as he is incredibly thorough with instruction and knowledgeable when it comes to food science.  The only thing I changed about his recipe is that I exchanged the white onions for red and used a large saucepan instead of an electric skillet.  If I remember this episode correctly, his skillet was quite long which allowed the onions to spread evenly.  I didn’t quite have that luxury and eventually ended up with a huge pile of onions to caramelize.  The only thing you need to watch out for when using a saucepan is the amount of water that accumulates from the onions.  I just periodically drained the excess liquid from the pan so as not to boil the onions. 

Once the soup was finished of course I had to add a huge piece of french bread and a pile of gruyere cheese to my individual portion.  I choose to toast my bread a little before putting it on top of my soup.  Then I added some shredded gruyere on top of that bread and broiled the soup.  Soooo, amazing.  Please visit Alton’s recipe at foodnetwork.com for instructions.

Pumpkin Risotto

I’m baaaaack!  Pretty sure no one knew BS went on a hiatus but nonetheless, it did.  After a few posts, I soon realized I needed to force myself to get organized and actually plan meals.  I even went so far as to actually measure and record my ingredients on paper?! Sooo, unlike me, I know.  But in the time BS took a break, I missed the two most pivotal events in a girl’s life; the opening of football season and pumpkin season! With that being said all recipes this week will include pumpkin capped off by a UT-inspired dish on Friday.

First up, pumpkin risotto! I made this risotto more laborious than it had to be but I was too cheap to buy canned pumpkin over the cheaper, fresher, real pumpkin.  But you definitely can substitute fresh pumpkin for the can.

Ingredients

1 small sugar pie pumpkin
1 cup arborio rice
½ medium onion
1 garlic clove
2 strips bacon
2 tbs butter
½ cups grated parmesan
1 cup dry white wine
6 + cups chicken broth
3-4 sage leaves
a dash or two of nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

Roasting the pumpkin

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cut a small sugar pie pumpkin in half and place the halves, face down, into a shallow cookie sheet with about an inch of water.  Roast pumpkin for 30-40 minutes.  Once soft and tender, scoop the pulp into a bowl and let stand.

For the Risotto

1.  Chop bacon into small strips and fry in a medium sized saucepan.  While the bacon is frying, put chicken broth into a small saucepan to bring to a rolling simmer.
2.  Once bacon is crisp, place bacon aside and drain some (only SOME) of the grease.  Add a little less than a tablespoon of butter.
3.  Saute onion in butter until fragrant.  Once onion is translucent add garlic clove, salt and pepper.
4.  Now add the rice and toast for a few minutes. (3-4 minutes)
5.  Next, add the wine.  Once the rice absorbs the wine, add about 3 cups of the hot broth.  Let the rice cook, covered, for about 7-10 minutes.  Make sure to keep your eye on the dish as the liquid may evaporate quicker than expected.
6.  Once the rice absorbs this first round of broth, add the remaining 3 cups of broth along with 1 cup of the pumpkin puree.  Let cook for another 5-7 minutes.
7.  Once you’ve incorporated the pumpkin.  Add 3 leaves of chopped sage and 1 tablespoon of butter into the dish.
8.  Once butter is melted add the parmesan.  Throughout this process, taste the rice to make sure it’s al dente or a little bit soft.
9.  Let this cook about another 5 minutes. Once done place into a bowl while you fry some of that sage in the remaining bacon grease. Add the sage to the bowl and enjoy!

     

Chicken Meatloaf with Onion Rings

Meatloaf has to be one of my favorite go-to comfort foods ever but I think the almighty loaf gets a bad rep sometimes.  I guess a solid, brick-like texture with a blanket of grease on top isn’t appealing to some.  Well that doesn’t appeal to me either so I came up with this less guilty version that uses ground chicken instead of beef.

Meatloaf Ingredients 

1 tbs olive oil, 1 carrot finely diced, 1 celery finely diced, ½ onion diced, 2 garlic cloves minced, 2 tsp herbs de provence,1 tsp paprika, salt and pepper, 1 lb ground chicken, 1 egg, ½ cup + breadcrumbs (I used panko), ½-2 tbs soy sauce, 1 8oz can tomato sauce

Worcestershire sauce, bacon (optional)

1. Add the first five ingredients to a heated oiled pan. 2. Sauté the vegetables until they are soft and translucent. 3. Next add your seasonings (salt, pepper, herbs and paprika). 4. Once you’ve let this mixture cool for a while, add the veggies and egg to a bowl with the ground chicken. 5. Now add a couple of dashes of the Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and roughly half of the can of tomato sauce. 6. Incorporate the ingredients and add the breadcrumbs. 7. The mixture should be moist but not soupy.  If the mixture is soupy and wet add more breadcrumbs.

Instead of a loaf pan, I opted to use muffin tins.  This cuts the cooking time down a little bit and it’s also useful when I want to freeze a few meatloaf muffins for later.  Plop (this is a technical term, of course) a couple of mounds of meat into each tin and top with a little piece of bacon.  Bake in a 375-degree oven for about 30 to 35 minutes.  If you’re into sauces, about 25 minutes in add any tomato sauce mixture of your liking.  I’ve used a ketchup, brown sugar and mustard mixture before.  

To send this meal over the edge, I fried up some crispy onion rings to lay on top of the meatloaf.  As for the mashed potatoes at the base of my meal, those came from some Chicken Out leftovers.  I wish I had that recipe for you.

Onion Rings

½ onion finely sliced into rings, flour, buttermilk, hot sauce, seasoned salt, paprika